Ronald Henry McMann

Ron was born at home in Yarmouth, Maine on June 19th, 1944, and graduated from Deering High School, in Portland.

Ron was predeceased by his mother, Eydthe McMann, father Richard McMann, sister Marsha Lee, daughter Tammy Allen, and grandson Christopher Allen Bruzgis.

Ron is survived by his wife of 54 years, Carolyn McMann; his children Dawn McMann, April Wheeler, Colleen Smith, and her husband Michael Smith, Erin McMann and her husband Paulie Rumery, Sean McMann, Kelly McMann, and her husband Victor DeTroy, brothers Richard McMann and his wife Linda McMann, Raymond McMann, Robert McMann, sisters Sherelee Clark and husband Stephen Clark, and Mary Ellen McMann. Ron is also survived by 12 grandchildren and 4 great-grandchildren and several nieces and nephews.

Ron took great pride in a lifelong career in public service that included working for the city of Portland and maintaining various cemeteries including Evergreen Cemetery, West End Cemetery, Eastern Cemetery in Portland Maine, Forrest City Cemetery in South Portland, Tory Hill Cemetery in Buxton and Oakdale Cemetery in Sanford Maine.

There are many things to say about who was Ronald McMann. To try to summarize such a man in a few simple paragraphs seems like such an injustice, for how can one portray a lifetime on a page? But I must try, as Ron deserves a tribute worthy of a prizefighter, who has just left the ring for the last time and is now walking the hall to the great beyond.

So, what I will say is Ron’s greatest purpose in life was family. His greatest joys were his children and grandchildren and he cherished family. He was a devoted son, brother, husband, father, grandfather, uncle, New England Sports Fan, and friend to many throughout his life. Ronald McMann was selfless, sentimental, kind, loving, understanding, welcoming, and non-judgmental. He could be a man of few words; unless you got him talking about sports, as he knew just as much as any long-time sports beat writer for the Boston Herald. Or if you got talking about history, especially anything related to Portland, before his battle with dementia, he knew it all.

One of Ron’s favorite pastimes was the weekly ritual of the Sunday Drive. Always first thing in the morning, after a breakfast of bacon and eggs or pancakes. He had no need for a map or GPS, as he had become a walking atlas; seeming to know every highway and backroad from Maine to New York. Yet no matter, which direction or how far he would go, he always seemed to make it back in time for at least the second half of the afternoon Sox, Patriots, Bruins, or Celtics game.

And though Ron will be greatly missed it is comforting to think of him no longer being limited by his failing body and mind imprisoned by his dementia, but instead thinking of him as being reunited with those he loved and lost prior and getting to bring them on a Sunday Drive to the soundtrack of Elvis, the Righteous Brothers and Otis Redding, to get a Powerball ticket and some pier fries to eat while walking the beach of Old Orchard. This is what I would like to think Ron is finally getting to do.

I will bring these ramblings to a close with a poem, that Ron had kept a copy of in his desk through all his days working from Evergreen Cemetery to Oakdale Cemetery.

In Search of Roots- author unfound

I went in search of ancient stones

That marked my forbears’ graves,

and felt a surge of family pride

wash over me in waves

As trudging through the unkept fields

To reach their resting place,

I felt a teardrop, then another

Running down my face

For though their histories I have known

For many, many, years,

The sighting of their hallowed stones

Brought veils of misty tears.

Now, many graves were trim and neat,

Though ‘graving hard to read,

And other graves were hid by brush

And meadows gone to seed.

But though their graves be neat or not,

And though their bones be mold,

Forever will their brave deeds live,

Their memories ne’er grow cold

And to borrow from this favorite poem of Ron’s I will say in closing

Forever will Ronald McMann’s brave deeds live,

His memories will never grow cold